New talking point for abuse photos: Taken by Dem to hurt Bush

[prolesunited]

I guess they can't find the spin that will stick. Apparently the "fraternity-type hijinks" just wasn't cutting it.

My question: Is there only one source of videos or photos? Has it been released where these came from?

Also, what is the best response to this argument?

[dsc]

1. I am not sure exactly what you mean

but the original source for them was a relative of a person who was involved in the activity. He tried to get various politicians to go forward on this to no avail so he approached Col Hackworth with them. They jointly went to CBS and the New Yorker.

[prolesunited]

14. Callers to CSPAN were saying this

Which means it is cycling through the spin machine right now, probably through e-mails and their talking heads. They never come up with an original idea, so no doubt is coming from somewhere.

I think they often use CSPAN to launch trial balloons.

BTW, since when did the TRUTH have anything to do with their arguments.

[yellowcanine]

16. All kinds of nutjobs get on CSPAN

Callers to CSPAN can't be used to monitor "Talking Points", right or left. Now the guests on "Washington Journal", that is something else again. If one of them is saying this you might have something.

[Tellurian]

35. You're absolutely right...

why waste time trying to rationalize the IRRational?

Our time can be better spent exposing all the documents that have been designated Classified and sequestered for how many years?

Including: Presidential Papers!

[JHB]

2. Taken by an ordinary soldier who knew right from wrong

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/PersonofWeek/pow_joseph_darby_040507-1.html

May 7, 2004 — Army Spc. Joseph Darby, 24, is the man who sounded the first alarm about the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison — by people in his own 372nd Military Police Company.

The New Yorker magazine was the first to report that after seeing the pictures we are all so familiar with now, Darby put an anonymous note under the door of his commander. He described the incidents and the photographs he had seen.
***
The photographs have had enormous consequences, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cited Darby's actions during testimony before Congress today.

"There are many who did their duty professionally," Rumsfeld said. "Spc. Joseph Darby … alerted the authorities that abuse was occurring."
----------------------------------

So even Rummy says it was "an army of one" doing his duty. Are they calling the Secretary of Defense a liar?

[Renew Deal]

3. That's crap

That's your response. Have him prove it. They can't because it's bullshit. Ask them if you would have preferred not to know.

[qb]

4. Bill Clinton took the photos. It's his fault.

(sarcasm)

[Lindsay]

19. The Clenis-cam?

LOL

[KayLaw]

29. Bill Clinton?

Actually, someone posted here that a freeper said Hilary Clinton did it and that's why she was in Iraq. I know it sounds silly, but there are some pretty goofy weirdos out there.

[LittleApple81]

5. WE NEED ALL THE PICTURES TO COME OUT. I don't want to see them but

the repugs are in full denial. They are willing to drag Democrats through the mud. The things they are saying about these torture events are horrible. WE NEED ALL THE PICTURES AND A COMPLETE INVESTIGATION. That is going to be the only way to bring things in the open and stop all this BULLSHIT.

[Jim__]

6. That sounds like a piss poor argument to me

No matter what the motive of the person releasing the photos, the photos speak for themselves. American guards were torturing prisoners - that fact can't be denied. Bush's policies, I believe are in large part responsible for this.

But, from things I've read, I get the clear implication that the father of one of the accused soldiers had the photos released to 60 Minutes 2 so that his son and a few underlings weren't made the fall guys (& gals). If that's true, it sounds like the motivation for the release of the photos may have been to prevent the bush administration from using a few scape goats to cover its ass.

[LittleApple81]

8. Agree totally. But callers to C-Span give you a glimpse of the

repug psyche... and it is UGLY. They won't believe anything until ALL THE PICTURES COME OUT!
I hate this, because I DON'T WANT TO SEE MORE PICTURES. They force me to face the reality of what human beings are and it is not pleasant. But for the repugs this is the only way to show them what reality is.

[Misinformed01]

7. I wouldn't give a damn if the

pictures were taken by a blind venetian venetian blind salesman.

Shooting the messenger in this case isn't going to help, because the message has already been delivered.

[LittleApple81]

10. Repugs are still insisting that they were childish pranks...can you

believe this?

[Misinformed01]

11. Yes, I can

There is no doubt in my mind that some of these jackasses see absolutely nothing wrong with what went on/is going on in these prisons.

Why would anyone expect people with no decent ethical or moral standards...indeed, people that demonstrate a complete lack of empathy for anyone who is not rich/white/acts white/wants to be white...to act like they give a rat's ass in this case?

[johnlal]

26. The minister of misinformation

It's really funny that so many conservative commentators came to this conclusion at the same time. It's almost as if they were instructed to spin it in that way. Limbaugh and Hannity have been on the air for a long time despite their history of saying insanely outrageous things on the public airwaves. They are our equivalent of Iraqi Information Minister Baghdad Bob. Leave it to the Republicans to outsource this job to the private sector.

[prolesunited]

31. Actually, many of them don't

I've heard all sorts of twisted justifications, such as look at what they did on 9-11 :eyes:, remember how they slit Perle's throat, don't forget the contractors who were brutally murdered...

The only unifying thread between any of these incidents is that they were carried out by brown-skinned Muslims. Therefore, they ALL deserve to die. If it was up to many of them, outright genocide would be an acceptable solution.

What I haven't heard much of is who is actually in that prison. Were they just rounded up in random sweeps — men of fighting age in a particular area. Have there been charges, hearings, etc.? Think of how many people were released from Gitmo and no charges were ever filed.

I'm not saying that guilty people deserve to be tortured and abused, but think of how awful this is if some of these men were innocent. If they didn't actively plot against Americans before, do you think they'll just turn the other cheek now?

When I hear comments like that, it seriously erodes my faith in humanity.

[Misinformed01]

36. I am only losing faith in people that still back GWB

I don't even think those people are qualified to be labeled "Sheep" anymore-

Before you lose faith in humanity, try to remember that your opinion of the horrors we are all being subjected to is in keeping with the rest of the world; and that the sorry little creep could not even win an election without the help of organized criminals.

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Yes there are more photos, lot's more photos

and they are already all over the place.

The Pentagon definitely has at least 2 CD's and a Video

Seymour Hersch has the 1st CD and a new CD that a soldier gave to him last week.

The Washington Post has pictures they haven't release yet.

Who knows how many copies of other stuff is stored all over the internet already.

Also known, is that the 1st two CD's were popular items at Abu Ghraid. The kid's were making copies and passing this stuff around with each other for entertainment.

This is why Bu$hCo is freaking out. There is no way they can control this crisis. They got nailed and they know it.

[sniffa]

12. the boy who cried partisan

partisan! partisan!

eventuaLLy, peopLe stopped Listening to his cries.

[blindpig]

13. another arguement I heard this morning:

That this is a War on Terra and we can't afford to play too nice! Same shithead went on to link Iraq & 9/11, said new info proves it. When a sane caller disputed his nonsense she hung up!(imagine that)
The commentator was Russ Castle of the Russ & Leesa show which pollutes the airwaves in Upstate SC.

[johnlal]

28. Yeah, but

If this was just the US "playing dirty" and being tough against terra', it still doesn't explain why the military allowed the tortures to be documented, and published globally. In order to be effective, these tortures must have been conducted in the utmost of secrecy, under very controlled conditions. Otherwise, you get the dire consequences we are seeing now. (Not that I condone torture. I am greatly disturbed by it. I'm just saying that the argument doesn't make sense).

[yellowcanine]

15. Where is this "new talking point"?

Do you have a link? This is the first I have heard of this. My sense is that this story is way beyond "talking points". Any attempt to spin at this point will only backfire. Rumsfield is going down and probably Myers too - or Bush is.

[prolesunited]

17. No link

heard it on CSPAN and it was a couple of callers over the course of the morning. Also, see my post #14.

I hope they not only go down but are put on trial in the world court for war crimes.

[LuminousX]

18. Best Response

Does it matter who took the pictures? Proper behavior is not subjective in these cases which is why the military has manuals and protocals. Whether the pictures were taken or not, the behavior was felonious.

Trying to change the arguments as to accuse the whistleblower for doing something wrong is very similar to trying to accuse the FBI agent who had pieced together that something very wrong was about to happen before 9/11 of being anti-America. Instead of focusing on the crime, these conservative intellectuals seem more concerned about whether or not the person who witnessed the crime has another agenda. The crime happened. Period. Everything else is fluff.

[underpants]

20. The photographer (Sivitts) is being court marshalled May 18th

something like that. Yes the big difference in this case was that they were stooooooooopid enough to document it. They all deserve all they get.

[central scrutinizer]

38. exactly - it is a straw man argument

They are not denying that the acts took place, only that somebody with an anti-* agenda took them. Now if they could prove that every soldier in all of the pictures was a Democratic operative and they staged everything then they can start talking.

[underpants]

21. Heard this morning-it was all part of psy-ops to affect the other prisoner

s

[Toucano]

22. They're just not keeping up with the facts.

The photos were PART OF THE PROCESS of humiliating the prisoners.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1563584

They were taken by different cameras and different people.

C-SPAN callers just aren't paying attention. I hope they represent a small minority of Americans' opinions on this matter.

They're all about justifying, excusing, and explaining the obscenity of what happened.

[Terran]

23. The counter argument is:

Who took the photos doesn't matter, or what their motive was. The fact is these deeds were done and people have been killed and injured because of them (referring to the NEXT set of photos). War crimes have been committed, we have lost even more face with the international community (if that was possible), and Rumsfeld and Meyers can't maintain military discipline. Those are the issues.

[Sparkly]

25. Agree that it's the acts themselves, not merely the pictures

But beyond that, if the rightwingers decide that Democrats alone concocted a plot to torture prisoners and photograph it to harm the Chimp, just how deep is the incompetence to allow such a thing to occur? Is the military just infused with plotting Democrats willing to be court-martialed for the sake of political harm to the Chimp?

Going up the chain of command, where was the level where somebody said, "We can't do this" and ordered it stopped, straight down the line? Did it never reach a Republican at any level? Crazy, crazy, crazy.

[Terran]

27. Oh, I see

Well, that would be a fairly ludicrous argument, but here's how I would counter it intelligently:

The abuses taking place are systemic, according to the Red Cross, and not the acts of a few individuals. So one would have to suppose a rather extensive conspiracy among military people to discredit their own efforts in Iraq.

And, it has also been stated that the abuses took place at the behest of Military Intelligence. So, Democrats would have to be running MI in order for this to have happened for political purposes. Given that the military is generally not full of liberals and other left-leaning types, I find this extremely hard to credit.

[johnlal]

24. The torture wasn't the worst part for the US

There were hints and allegations of abuse all along, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in Quantanamo Bay. We were always able to deny the allegations.

In this case, however, due to the utter chaos in Iraq, and due to the total lack of security in the Abu Ghraib prison facility, someone was allowed (or even encouraged) to document the abuse. Cameras were allowed to be carried into the prison. These pictures were allowed to be carried (or transmitted) out of the prison, and published globally.

It was the pictures-- and not the underlying torture, that caused the most damage to our global reputation. So even if there were democrats who wanted to stage abuses in the prison, how in the world were they allowed to do so? Where was the security? This is supposed to be a secure facility.

If it were democrats staging this, then the administration wouldn't be falling over itself to make apologies. What you see is what you get.Of course this isn't the case. Just a few right wing nuts running their mouths. I heard someone blame the culture of sexual permissiveness for this abuse (with a strong suggestion of Lewinski's Blue Dress).

[tnlefty]

30. I heard a nutcase last week stating that the dems and Hillary are behind

the picture taking....she visited Iraq you know:crazy:

I've heard the "democrats are behind this" on c-span and on local talk radio. So yeah, I'd guess that's the new excuse for the inexcusable.

[TrogL]

34. They need a target

Heaven help that a Republican should be responsble for anything. If they can't blame it on Dem's they'll try and blame it on Satan.

[underpants]

32. Hold it-wasn't it Clinton's fault when the one guy let go of the rope

in Mogadishu? The "Blackhawk down" incident, remember. Clinton was directly involved and responsible right?

[dryan]

33. Similar comment made about the Bush girls drinking problem

Remember that one, Republican pundits said that the bartender who had one of the bush twin arrested for drinking under the age and the fake id incident was a Democrat.

[tom_paine]

37. "The person who took those pictures was a Patriot and Hero."

"The person who took those pictures did so at great personal risk, at least the person who blew the whistle and passed them on. Don;t you DARE question the patriotism on someone who would blow the whistle on torture. If YOu were being tortured, wouldn't want someone to blow the whistle and save your ass? Wouldn't you be grateful?"

"So, shut the fuck up with that shit. If you want to think like that, why don't you go to Commie China? I hear they consider WhistleBlowers to be Enemies of the State and I think you'd fit in JUST RIGHT with that crowd. You might have to change your economic philospophy, but you can leave the rest exactly how it is."